


new game > continue

by beetlejuice



Category: Pocket Monsters: Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire | Pokemon Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire Versions
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Chronic Pain, F/M, Gen, I Wrote This For Me, Mental Illness, Panic Attacks, Service Pokémon, This Fic is completely Self-Indulgent, but i wanted to put it in the tags just in case, but you guys are welcome to join me in whatever the hell this is, don't worry its not graphic, flat feet, shelly's mightyena dies, so join me as i explore the some what real world consequences of pokémon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:15:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26947309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetlejuice/pseuds/beetlejuice
Summary: They dive down into the darkness, down the steps and into an antechamber. Riley stops dead, and awe and terror fills her chest like a leaden balloon. She doesn’t even see Steven at first, the carvings of Primal Kyogre draw her eyes up and around, the mural wrapping around the entire room in its magnificence.It's beautiful, in the way all natural disasters are beautiful.“Wow,” she breathes the word softly, but it ripples out like an echo through the heavy silence.The sound of rock shifting and grinding under moving feet snaps her attention back to the man she’d been sent to find. He looks down at her with a steely gaze, but his expression is soft in its blankness.“Hello,” his voice is deep and smooth, like a placid river with a bottom so deep no sunlight will ever reach it.
Relationships: Tsuwabuki Daigo | Steven Stone & Original Character(s), Tsuwabuki Daigo | Steven Stone/ Riley Redford (OC)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 21





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> This is a completely self-indulgent, borderline self-insert fic that I've been playing around with for awhile now. And I thought that maybe, some of you will enjoy this completely weird off-the-wall fic. So here it is.
> 
> And no, I do not take criticism.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Riley still isn't sure if she's dreaming or not, but she's just going with it for now.

**Part I**

It’s been four months and Riley still isn’t entirely sure that she simply hasn’t fallen into a coma, and is currently stuck on life support in a hospital waiting for death, and this is just some hallucination (an extremely vivid, time-linear hallucination) her brain is giving her for comfort in her final moments.

However, the hot white sands spilling in-between her toes tell a very different story, namely that this world– _reality_ , wherever the fuck she was–was indeed real. The world she had somehow fallen into (a black hole? A rip in the space-time continuum?) was the fucking Pokémon world.

God help her. Or perhaps more accurately, _Arceus_ help her. Holy shit.

The rumbling purr of her Grovyle further cements the reality of this world and its continued absurdity. She named him Gemma, and she’s pretty sure that he’s the sole reason why she’s even made it this far. And she doesn’t mean _here_ , physically or the battles they had won together (and wow, there is a _lot_ more strategy to Pokémon battles than the games ever let on. It is a lot more fun, with more variables than you could possibly imagine), he has become the foundation on which she has built her life in this new world. Her grumpy, temperamental foundation.

God, she loves him so much.

Her Skitty, who Riley named Skittles (and no, she does not take criticism), was playfully pouncing on the shifting sands, while keeping a cautious eye on the swelling push and pull of the waves. She brushes her fingers through her Skitty’s soft, dense fur (it feels like rabbit fur), and lets out a coiled breath. Skittles looks up with a soft _mew_ , leaving the sand behind to push her face into Riley’s palm, a silent demand for more skritches. Riley of course, obliges.

Both are at level 20 despite having just one gym badge to her name. (The Pokédex Birch gave her always relays the level of the Pokémon, and the Moves they know, and what TM’s they're compatible with. Basically the Pokédex is a work of genius, and Riley would die for this thing).

The letter to Stone’s son sits heavily in the pocket of her jacket, but she doesn’t make a move towards Granite Cave; previous experience has taught her that the world she found herself in does loosely (very loosely) follow the game’s storyline.

Besides there’s little point in putting off the battle, her Pokémon are plenty strong enough to win.

Riley pulls herself to her feet with a long sigh, shaking the clinging sand from the creases of her cargo pants. Gemma and Skittles turn to look at her. She smiles at them, patting her thigh for them to heel.

“Let’s go kids. Time to collect another gym badge.” She throws her backpack across her shoulders, as her partners fall in line beside her (and she thanks Whoever that training Pokémon is similar to training dogs, although she will admit that Pokémon are _much_ smarter).

She sweeps through Dewford’s gym with little trouble, her Skittles’s fairy move making mince meat of the gym’s fighting-type partners, and Gemma’s raw strength takes them out with cutting speed and sheer force.

The tricky part is feeling her way through the pitch black areas of the gym. Her shins won’t be thanking her later.

When she reaches Brawly he assesses her with sharp eyes that linger on Gemma’s evolved form. “Not many show up here with their partners already evolved.”

She offers him a smile, sharp and challenging as she nods Gemma forward. “They wanted to become stronger. I merely obliged,” she tells him evenly.

Gemma steps forward, his hissing roar rattling through the gym, his leaf-like feathers glowing green with power.

Brawly grins at her in response, a smile full of teeth as he calls forth his first Pokémon, calling a start to the battle.

Gemma wins by a smaller margin than Riley is usually comfortable with, his health is just below half (she isn’t kidding about battles being way more complicated than the game portrayed them). But there is power in Gemma’s beaten body, a fierceness that burns like fire in his amber eyes. Blood from both Pokémon is smeared across the punctured walls, and splintered floors, crumbling craters where blows of power managed to hit the floor rather than Gemma.

But in the end it is her who claims victory.

“Well done,” Brawly says, his voice bright with joy, and his eyes lit up with power. “You have undoubtedly earned my badge.”

He offers her a more sincere smile this time as he hands her the Knuckle Badge. He explains how Pokémon up to level 30 will now obey her without question. Riley glances away, hiding the curl of her lips as she shares a sly look with her two partners, well aware that they don’t follow her orders because she suddenly has a new shiny badge. She has their respect, and that had to be earned.

As a final farewell he gives Riley his favorite TM: _Bulk Up_ ; a move that had damn near finished Gemma, and was responsible for those horrific craters in his gym floor. She gives the silver disc a weary look; it’s such an obnoxious move.

She was just about to turn away when the letter Stone gave her crinkles in her pocket.

“Ah, if I could ask for just one more favor?” She says a little sheepishly, turning to address Brawly.

He raises an eyebrow at her. “Hm?”

She holds up the letter she’d been given between two fingers. “Have any idea where I might find someone named Steven? A man named Mr. Stone has a letter for him.” (She of course knows where to find him, but she’s not sure how strict the storyline is in this world, or if there’s a _storyline_ at all).

Brawly’s face twitches as though he’s fighting back a bark of laughter. She looks at him levelly, cocking her head at his reaction.

“You’ll find him somewhere in the back of Granite Cave. The fancy idiot loves mucking around in the dirt looking for new kinds of stones,” he tells her with a grin. “You might want to hurry if you want to catch him though. He never stays in one place for long.”

She nods, turning with a wave. “Thanks.”

The trainers that usually linger around the mouth of the cave let her pass with a jaunty wave and a nod (she beat them when she had gotten here hours ago). She returns the gestures as the cave closes in on top of them. Gemma shakes himself, looking to her, waiting to be released to explore their surroundings. Riley nods with a smile and a tap of her finger, and Gemma is off, racing into the murky darkness. Riley huffs in amusement as she hears Gemma startle a colony of zubat into flight.

Skittles stays at Riley’s heels, seemingly content to explore the cave next to the security of her trainer’s side.

It takes an hour to reach the crumbling staircase that’ll lead them into the chamber with the mural of Kyogre carved into its walls, and Riley’s feet are _aching_. During her four months here, she’s never done so much walking in her life, and of course her flat fleet just had to follow her through whatever wormhole tossed her here.

She braces herself on her knees with a sigh, trying to gather her breath. God, she’s so out of shape.

Skittles nudges her ankle with a concerned mew, her long tail brushing against her thigh. Riley smiles, stroking a silky ear. “I’m alright Skit. Just tired.”

Gemma is suddenly there at her shoulder, pressing his long muzzle into her short hair with a rumble.

“I’m fine Gemma,” she says softly, scratching him beneath the chin. “I promise. Now c’mon, we’re almost finished here.”

They dive down into the darkness, down the steps and into an antechamber. Riley stops dead, and awe and terror fills her chest like a leaden balloon. She doesn’t even see Steven at first, the carvings of Primal Kyogre draw her eyes up and around, the mural wrapping around the entire room in its magnificence.

It's beautiful, in the way all natural disasters are beautiful.

“Wow,” she breathes the word softly, but it ripples out like an echo through the heavy silence.

The sound of rock shifting and grinding under moving feet snaps her attention back to the man she’d been sent to find. He looks down at her with a steely gaze, but his expression is soft in its blankness.

“Hello,” his voice is deep and smooth, like a placid river with a bottom so deep no sunlight will ever reach it.

“Hi. You’re Steven, right?” Her voice is soft, and she rubs the letter in her pocket between her fingers before pulling it out. “Brawly told me you’d be here.”

“Oh?” Curiosity lines his gray eyes, but there’s a hard edge beginning to line his jaw.

She holds out the letter. “Mr. Stone asked me to get this to you.” The words spill out of her in a tangled rush, and _god_ this is why she hates talking to people.

Steven appraises her for one long moment and Riley punches down the instinct to blush. She wants his eyes to be literally _anywhere_ else but on her.

His eyes soften as he approaches her, and wow is he tall. Like, she doesn’t even come up to his shoulder, kinda tall. He gently pulls the letter free from her fingers before tucking it into the pocket of his waistcoat.

“Thank you. It must’ve been quite troublesome tracking me down,” he says, smiling at her.

She glances up, cocking her head at him and shrugging her shoulders. “Not really. I had to come here for my second gym badge anyway.” She shifts on her feet, and tries to hide the grimace. Her body’s really starting to hurt.

Gemma steps up beside her, pressing his cool scales through the thin lining of her jacket, and into the overheated warmth of her arms.

She sees Steven frown at her and curses herself for not hiding her pain better. “Are you alright?”

She tries to smile at him, but doesn’t think she manages it. “Yeah. Just a long hike.” God her heels and knees are _burning_.

His frown deepens before glancing at her Pokémon, and whatever he’s looking for he apparently doesn’t find. “Let me escort you out of here,” his words are polite, but they are so clearly not a suggestion.

“Really, I’ll be fine. I just need to rest for a bit.” Riley almost scowls when Gemma snorts at her bold declaration. Steven looks at her, unimpressed by her refusal. She sighs looking away, “I’ll just slow you down. Trust me I’ll be fine. My partners are with me. They’ll keep me safe.”

“I’m not leaving you here, and you look like you can’t walk much further. So unless you both want us to spend a night in Granite Cave you’ll let me help you,” he says firmly.

She closes her eyes with a grumble. “Damn it. _Fine_. But unless you have a Pokémon who can carry me I don’t see how–”

Steven was kneeling in front of her with his back toward her.

“No. Absolutely not,” her voice is hard with embarrassment.

Steven looks at her over her shoulder, amusement and exasperation painted clearly on his face. “I don’t have a Pokémon with me that can carry you, but I can.”

“It’s an _hour_ walk,” Riley argues, even though she knows she won’t be winning this battle. Especially since Gemma and Skittles are shooting her looks that say ‘just get on you idiot’. Which, _rude_.

“Then we better get moving, and don’t worry, I’m stronger than I look,” Steven tells her. “Now get on or I’ll just pick you up.”

She glares at the back of his head, placing a hand on his shoulder. “You wouldn’t _dare_ ,” Riley hisses at him.

She inhales sharply when Steven wraps his arms through her legs and picks her up like she weighs no more than her Skitty. He shoots her a charming grin over his shoulder, “Guess you’ll never know.”

She hums at his words, feeling a tendril of warmth blooming in her chest as he carries her out of the antechamber and away from the calamity that she will one day have to meet head on.

Gemma and Skittles flank them, eyeing the gloom with searching eyes and attentive ears. Steven looks at them with a considering gaze.

“Your Pokémon are well trained,” Steven tells her, watching Gemma and Skittles carefully assess their surroundings.

She smiles warmly at them. “Thanks. They’re my best friends. I got really lucky with them.” In more ways than one.

Steven smiles at her declaration, like the sun appearing after a long winter frost. Riley doesn’t see it.

The silence that falls between them is easy, and Steven’s legs eat up at least half the distance, looking no worse for wear.

“So, how do you know my father?” His tone is deliberately casual, and Riley pretends not to hear it.

“Mr. Stone? … Well, I sorta stopped one of his scientists from being robbed in Petalburg Forest,” Riley explains gamely.

Steven stops dead, twisting his head to look at her. “What?”

Riley feels a blush warming her cheeks, and begins plucking at Steven’s clothes with her fingers to distract herself. “Err … yeah. But I only met him after they had been robbed _again_ , and I got the scientist’s stuff back. Devon something or other.”

She continues pecking at his clothes with her fingernails until Steven finally looks away with a shake of his head. “What kind of incompetent guards did my father hire this time?” The question was muttered, and she could see the twist of a dark expression in the tightness of his jaw.

She shrugs even though she knows he can’t see her. “I didn’t see any guards, but it's not like the Team Aqua guy was hard to beat or anything,” she says blandly. Gemma had knocked out the Poochyena in one hit, and the guy had basically thrown the stolen goods at her face before booking it out of there.

(At least the game had gotten one aspect right. The grunts of Team Aqua were always terribly weak. No challenge at all.)

“Team Aqua?” He says their name with all the derisiveness it deserves.

Riley hides a scoff of laughter in his shoulder. “Yeah, they’re awful.” In more ways than just their terrible on-brand naming techniques.

“Hm. I’ll have to look into them,” he mutters to himself.

Riley feels herself relaxing into him, the tingling burn of pain in her feet is now happily numb. And this was definitely not in the game, so at least now she knows that the storyline is flexible (very, _very_ flexible).

The sun is dropping into the ocean as they finally emerge from Granite Cave, finding the whole world painted in slates of molten gold and fire red. Steven manages to drop her off just outside the Pokémon Center, as she refuses point-blank to be carried inside.

She ignores the pinch of pain in the arch of her foot as her feet touch the ground. “Thank you,” she tells him, feeling both embarrassed and incredibly grateful. “You didn’t have to.”

He stares at her with a look that clearly says ‘I absolutely did’, but doesn’t argue with her. “You’re welcome. And, as thanks for going out of your way to find me, here,” he hands her the now familiar silver disc of a TM. “This is the Move _Steel Wing,_ one of my favorites,” he tells her with a grin.

She takes it with a smile. “I’ll be sure to use it then,” She promises.

He turns away with a nod. “I’ll look into these Team Aqua characters.” He turns to look at her, “Do try not to get caught up in anymore trouble.”

Riley cocks her head at him. “No promises.”

She turns towards the Pokémon Center, and when she looks back he’s already gone. “Well,” she says to her Pokémon and the universe, “that went differently than expected.”

Skittles yawns in the face of Riley’s quiet, bewildered observation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So flat feet are an absolute bitch. I can't hold down a retail job to save my life, and believe me, I have tried. So, because I live to torture my wonderful OC's, who I love and I want to see how someone can complete this cross-country gym challenge while being moderately physically disabled, while suffering from anxiety.


	2. Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team Aqua turns out to be far more terrifying than the games ever portrayed them as, and Contest Halls are filled with smiling blue-haired pixies and anxiety.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slateport would be a bitch to navigate, that's all I'm saying

**Part II**

Slateport is dawning on the ocean, the city shining like a pearl under the hot Hoenn sun. Mr. Briney’s sturdy, little vessel cuts through the foamy waves with practiced ease; the cry of his Wingull pierces through the roaring heartbeat of the sea, and the practiced seabird guides them to a small, wooden docking platform that lands them directly on the beach.

Skittles can’t get off the boat fast enough, glaring blarefully at the thing, as though it had personally offended her. The poor cat had gotten sea sick more than once on their journey, and despite Riley’s numerous offers to ride it out in her pokéball, Skittles had refused, more out of stubbornness than anything.

Gemma huffs at his friend, reaching down to snuffle the Skitty’s large ears with his scaly snout. Skittles batted the offending muzzle away, while they waited for their trainer to say her good-byes.

Riley rolls her eyes at the two of them before turning to Mr. Briney. The old man has been nothing but accommodating towards them. “You have my thanks,” she says earnestly.

The old man shrugs off her thanks with a toothless grin. “Oh don’t just stand around thanking old men like me; it’s been a pleasure. Besides, I believe you best be finding Captain Stern, and delivering those Devon Goods. Now off with you!”

A chuff of laughter escapes her as she waves good-bye to him and joins her Pokémon on the beach.

She moves through the trainer-filled beach, battling with anyone willing to engage her. They were fun, but she could tell her partners didn’t find their opponents especially challenging. Still, the owner of the sea shack was happy to invite her back the next time he had a challenger special. And hey, at least she walked away with a case of soda pop. (She was promised her Pokémon would love it).

Finding the shipyard turns out to be a lot harder than she thought it would be. Slateport is, in a word, pretty fucking big, and Riley doesn’t have a convient bird’s eye view to help her navigate through the city, instead of wandering around aimlessly through the streets like a lunatic. Gemma, the traitor, was snoozing in his pokéball, seemingly unconcerned by her terrible sense of direction.

Skittles was nestled on her head, her rumbling purr helping Riley breathe through the growing knot of anxiety building between her ribs. Skittles was also very warm, and Riley could feel sweat drawing lines through her skin.

It takes her another thirty frustrating minutes to find the shipyard (now with aching feet), although she had found the Oceanic Museum first, and had found a group of Team Aqua loitering just outside.

They hadn’t been doing anything, _yet_. She really needed to figure out how the police functioned in this world ( _did they function_?), maybe when she got to the Pokémon Center she could call them or something.

But she’s not holding her breath.

So she left Team Aqua where they were because let’s face it, she's a young woman who barely hits five feet, and despite how well trained her Pokémon are, even she can’t take on eight trainers at once. And that’s _if_ they don’t try to come after her physically.

They haven’t yet, but if she did manage to win against all eight trainers, _well_ … desperation can lead to ugly, terrifying things. And Riley never said she was brave.

So, the Shipyard, where she finds out that Captain Stern is… not here– _right_. Of course not. Of course he’s at the Oceanic Museum, because where else would he be? Riley rubs the bridge of her nose beneath her glasses.

“Fuck’s sake,” she mutters.

Facing Team Aqua is not as easy as confronting them in the game. The two men in front of her leer at her, and it makes her want to take an eight-hour shower while scrubbing her skin until it bleeds. They’re coarse and ugly, and they use their Pokémon like battering rams, uncaring of the damage they cause either to themselves or to others.

Her partners sweep their Pokémon aside with a sickening ease, and as she watches the grunts (if they have names she doesn’t care to learn them) recall their whimpering, bleeding Pokémon with a sneering scoff, she feels her eyes grow hot, and her hands tighten into fists. She wants to punch them, to punish _them_ , not their Pokémon.

Gemma snarls at the two grunts, who stumble away from the enraged reptile, his curved, python-like fangs shining under the museum’s fluorescent lights. Captain Stern stands behind her, making no move to help either her or himself. She wants to punch him too.

And then Archie is coming down the hall, and the only thing missing is the ominous music that would be swelling in the background. He looks at his defeated underlings like they’re nothing but Wurmples beneath his boot. Barely worth acknowledging.

And then he looks at her and Riley feels ice crawl up her spine. Gemma hisses at her side, his head low and teeth bared. She knows that if Archie so much as steps towards her Gemma would have Archie’s throat between his teeth.

He smirks at her, calling her “scamp” like she’s some pesky annoyance that he finds almost amusing at the moment. He tells her that all life comes from the sea, and the humans are perverting it, destroying the ecosystem for their own selfish goals, and that he seeks to rectify that wrong.

And if she were in her own world, she’d probably agree with him (although her world doesn’t have an elemental titan one can summon at will to alter the world as they see fit). But this world, the Pokémon world seems oddly in balance. Everything is clean, and as far she can tell, nature and Pokémon are respected.

But she knows there must be some truth to his words (there’s too much anger in there for there not to be), but that doesn’t make what he’s about to do any less horrific.

He lets her go with a warning, gathers up his grunts and leaves. And just like that it's over. Her stomach feels made of lead, and she barely feels Skittles’s tiny paws in her hair, mewing softly in her ear, or Gemma gently nosing her shoulder. She keeps staring at the staircase where Archie had disappeared into, and she realizes that this is not a game. It's really, _really_ not.

_Fuck_.

Captain Stern clears his throat behind her and she flinches. Gemma turns on the man with a snarl, which has the captain stumbling back into the wall. She quiets Gemma with a touch near his jaw, and gives the captain a flat look.

He fumbles nervously before addressing her, “Young miss–ah, Riley was it?” She inclines her head, words feel like rocks in her mouth, and she can still feel her heart pounding a tattoo of fear behind her ribcage. Best to just keep her mouth shut, mostly for her own sake. “That, ah that was quite the intense situation. Thank you for helping me out.” He pauses uncomfortably before soldiering on, “I–ah, you brought the Devon Goods, yes?”

Riley sighs, plucking them from her bag and handing them over, wondering not for the first time what would’ve happened if she just kept them. But that option is lost to her now as Captain Stern takes the parts with a wondrous grin.

He thanks her without looking at her, nearly bouncing on his toes as he shoots down the stairs, seemingly unconcerned with the terrorist group that could still be lying in wait for him.

Skittles growls low in her throat, conveying her disgust at the man. Riley can’t help but agree, and _god_ her feet are killing her.

Riley groans in relief as she digs her aching, burning feet into the warm sand, leaning back on her hands with a tired smile. Skittles is curled into her side, a ball of warmth lining her thigh, and Gemma is perched on the shoreline, his talons dipped in the salty spray of the sea.

Riley looks away to where the sun is sinking back into the deep belly of the sea, and closes her eyes and tries to breathe. Tears burn the edges of her eyes and with a shuddering breath she lets them fall. Today was terrifying, today was real.

She feels Gemma’s scaly head nudge her shoulder, a deep purr rising from his throat, it sounds a lot like the rumbling of an engine. She reaches up to scratch him behind his eyes, and his scales feel like silk draped over steel. Like something _strong_.

Skittles purrs, pressing herself more tightly against her, and Riley hides a smile in Gemma’s neck as she reaches down and sinks her fingers in Skittles’s soft, rabbit fur.

“You know,” she whispers softly, the roar of the sea pulsing in her ears, “I’d be lost without you guys.”

Gemma’s deep, almost aggressive purring is an answer in and of itself. They’d be lost without her too.

They leave late in the morning (and if she’s being honest it’s closer to noon), leaving the Pokémon Center behind them with every step. Skittles sits on top of her head, her new favorite perch from where she can judge the world from her new lofty height of five foot nothing. Gemma meanders at her heels, his nose in the air as they pass through Slateport’s marketplace, still bursting at the seams with vendors and tourists packed tightly into the square.

Riley avoids the mass of bodies, she already feels raw from yesterday, no need to tempt a panic attack out from the depths of her frayed mind.

They had almost reached the town gate when a commotion catches Skittles’s attention that has her mewing curiously, and Riley feels her swivel her head around to see it.

“What,” Riley mutters, as her and Gemma turn to look. For one heart stopping second Riley thinks it might be Team Aqua, but no– _no_ , just a regular guy in a blue shirt. She blinks, watching in bewilderment as the crowd just keeps growing.

Gemma cocks his head curiously before looking to her, but Riley shrugs, as lost as he is. At this point she’s not sure the storyline has much sway in this world. (Although Archie’s arrival was spot-on, so–she has so many questions).

She eyes the growing crowd with a grimace and grabs Gemma’s arm.

“Block,” she orders softly, and lets Gemma take the lead as they plunge into the crowd. Gemma wraps his fluttering tails around her, his mere presence urging people to take a step back, and allow the Grovyle his space, and in turn, allows Riley some breathing room.

They find a spot close to the front, and the colorful building of the Pokémon Contest Hall greets them. _Oh_ , she thinks. _That makes sense_. Unlike gym battles, which don’t allow media of any kind inside their halls, Pokémon Contests welcome the media, and its barrage of cameras and microphones.

From what Riley vaguely remembers in the game, she thinks this crowd has something to do with–

“Lisa!”

Riley jumps at the excited scream, and Gemma steps closer to her, his head raised to watch the people around them. Skittles purrs loudly on top of her head, pressing her slight weight firmly on Riley’s head to help ground her.

God, she really loves her Pokémon.

Reaching up, she scratches Skittles’s side in thanks, sliding her fingers through her dense fur. Then she turns to Gemma, and she scratches him just below the shoulder in quiet gratitude, hitting one of his sweet spots that makes his leg thump the ground rapidly in joy. He purrs like a motor, leaning into her fingers with a happy rumble.

“You guys are the best,” she says softly.

She turns her attention back towards the doors of the Contest Halls, and sees a well-groomed Altaria perched patiently next to its trainer, a young woman with long, blue hair and a practiced smile. Apparently she’s scouting for another contestant.

Riley makes a face. _No thanks._ She tugs on Gemma’s arm and turns to leave, as the last thing she ever wants to do is stand up in front of a crowd and a panel of judges, and perform. Just the thought turns her stomach. She can almost feel her anxiety buzzing beneath her skin, like a kicked hive of angry Beedrill.

She’s almost clear of the crowd when a perky voice swoops in from behind like a bird of prey, and shouts: “You!”

Gemma swivels around her, placing himself firmly between Riley and the perky, blue pixie. The woman doesn’t seem deterred, even as Riley shrinks into his side as the crowd turns to look at her (her worst nightmare right here. Holy shit, she wants off this ride). The woman makes no move to get around Gemma, but her enthusiasm for whatever she’s doing isn’t dimmed in the slightest.

And the next few moments fly by in a blur of noise, color, and paralyzing panic and a _‘what the fuck just happened’_ kind of a thing. Riley’s still clinging to Gemma’s arm like a lifeline as the crowd finally disperses, disappearing into the streets or the Contest Hall, leaving Riley alone with the blue-haired woman who has single-handedly just fried her nerves for the next few hours.

The woman at least, looks a little apologetic about it all. Gemma is still a solid scaly wall between them, and looks like nothing short of death will move him.

“I’m sorry for causing all the fuss, it's just–you caught my attention,” she said brightly. “Your Pokémon are so beautiful and well-trained, and I just really think the circuit would benefit from having someone like you to keep them on their toes. Oh, I’m Lisa by the way!”

Riley tries to swallow, but her mouth is dry, and her brain feels like its setting itself on fire. She can only shake her head, and mutter a squeaky “no thanks”, her eyes glued to the stone walkway as Gemma gently nudges her away from the Contest Hall.

“Wait!”

Riley closes her eyes, her frustration at not being able to get away is growing like a tangle of knotted weeds in her chest. But she turns around regardless.

Lisa looks at her with remorse and guilt lining the shadows of her face. “I’m sorry,” she says softly. _Sincerely_. “I didn’t mean–” Riley knows what she means when Lisa deliberately doesn’t look at her. “Here.” She hands over a small case. “It’s a berry mixer. Pokémon love them. And … if you ever change your mind, well … you know where to find me.”

Her Altaria chirps at Riley encouragingly before following her trainer through the sliding doors.

Riley stands there holding a berry mixer with a dumbfounded expression plastered on her face, and stares at the doors for a solid minute, before muttering, softly, but with feeling, “What the fuck?”


	3. Part Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brendan is a Good Friend, and Riley deliberately tests this world's "storyline".

**Part III**

They train relentlessly for the next week, and if the rush of battle helps her drown out the relentless buzz of anxiety every time she catches sight of the Contest Hall, well, so much the better. She has yet to cross under the bicycle overpass, and a part of her wonders that if she waits long enough, maybe Brenden will find her here, near the entrance to Slateport, rather enroute to Mauville City.

A part of her wants to test it, but another part looks at her partners who are growing stronger with every battle, and wants to continue forward. They’ve already breached level 31, and Gemma is already starting to show signs of evolution, the scales on his back are subtly changing color; they’re almost brown now with just a hint of yellow shining through. And Gemma’s once narrow head is growing flatter, with lines of scales just starting to ridge the crowns of his face.

(Evolution was still flashy, at least the final stage of it, but you always see hints of it first that you don’t always catch, like a puppy suddenly growing into their paws).

Skittles is a warm ball of heat on her lap with the same pink silk fur, and round face. The trainers she had fought had grinned at her in that condescending manner when she had called on Skittles to fight. They had looked at the small, cute pink cat and had dismissed the iron strength hidden behind her soft fur.

They had lived to regret that fatal miscalculation as they handed over her monetary winnings. Riley had only smiled at them, Skittles perched proudly on her head, purring like an engine.

Gemma, ever the cheerleader, hadn’t even bothered to hide his hissing laughter at the Pokémon that had taken their cues from their trainers, and had badly underestimated the pink little cat.

She glances at Gemma, who was busy flushing out electric-types from the knee-deep grassy meadow with snapping teeth, the tell-tale glow of the leaf blades on his forearms cut like swords through the poor electric-types who cry out in surprise. The startled Pokémon let out yelping barks as they flee, jolts of electricity fencing the air as they disappear back into the long grass.

Apparently one of the side-effects of the last stage of evolution is an alarmingly high prey-drive, and a restless amount of energy that has made standing still Gemma’s new nightmare, and Riley’s new headache.

Riley watches him with a patient expression, smiling as Gemma looks towards her as he always did, checking in and looking for direction.

She secures Skittles in her ams as she stands, looking at Gemma before nodding towards the overpass.

“Shall we?” Her voice is no more than whisper, but Gemma barks in excitement (he sounds like a raptor), and shoots off ahead.

Skittles looks at him like all his excess energy is exhausting just to _be_ around. Riley strokes her ears as she buries her cold, wet nose into Riley’s elbow.

Brenden greets her just as she crosses under the overpass (so not exactly where he finds her in the game), and greets her with a grin, and an exuberant wave. She has to smile when he skids to a stop in front of her, every inch of him covered in dust and grass stains.

“Riley! Long time, no see. How are you doing? How’s your team doing?” His questions are shot off in rapid fire, with no pause in-between to answer them.

“I’m fine,” she answers shortly, but not unkindly. “And my team’s coming along.” (Understatement).

When they had initially met Riley was still trying to work out the mechanics of _‘how the hell did I get here’_ (and the jarring trauma of being dropped into an entirely different world with no way back to her own that she could find).

She had pretty much functioned on auto-pilot, until Professor Birch had gifted her, her Treecko (especially when it came to interacting with her other parents–the realization that she had truly lost her real parents, and would probably never see them again had _gutted_ her. She had been lucky that the house had been empty when she had finally let herself break apart).

He had been like a bucket of ice water over her head when he had started talking because he had never, not once, had stuck to the script of the game’s storyline. Sure, he usually got across what the scene in question was trying to tell her (if it was trying to tell her anything), but he would always go off on tangents.

He’d be telling her that he’s heading out to do research, and he’s in a _hurry_ because he’s already late, and then get himself distracted by rambling about the migration and nesting habits of swellows, and why they were so vital to the ecosystem.

He had been the first person that Riley had really looked at, and had seen as a _person_ , a real, living human being with interests, and passion, and faults. He wasn’t just an NPC, where she could mash the “A” button and scroll through the conversation at high speed.

He was the first person to really make her think that this whole thing might be _real_. At least until Gemma came into her life, and then she had known.

She’d never really had friends before, but she thinks Brenden might be well on his way to becoming one.

He challenges her to a battle with a wide grin which Riley finds herself returning.

A Shroomish erupts in a flash of blazing red, shaking itself as it cries out, mirroring the excitement of her trainer. Riley looks down at Skittles, who takes that as her cue to leap out her arms, facing the swaying Shroomish with a cat's grin.

Riley can almost see the moment both Brenden and his Shroomish make the same error the previous trainers she had faced had made, and let a fraction of their guard slip. She taps the ground once with her toe, and Skittles is off like a shot, tackling Shroomish into the dirt with the force of a sludgehammer.

Brenden looks stunned, as though he was being caught in a suffocating flurry of Stun Spore.

Shroomish does not get up.

He calls forth Wailmer next, the ball-like water-type Pokémon who is seemingly unconcerned with the solid ground beneath it (and Riley will say this: _no_ Pokémon is set to scale in the game, and Wailmer is _huge_. Brenden is completely hidden from her. Skittles looks like a scuttling bug-type next to this thing).

This time Brenden wastes no time in calling his next attack, and a violent stream of salt water shoots out like a bolt–but Skittles jumps out of its way, the jet of water hitting the earth beneath her with a shuddering crack.

With narrowed eyes and a pounding heart, Riley slides her toe across the earth, and then taps it once.

Skittles doesn’t hesitate (and wow, Riley is so thankful she worked out non-verbal commands), using her small body and superior speed to step through the volley of Water Guns aimed in her direction. Skittles darts every which way, faster and faster, until Wailmer loses sight of her in the midst of his own attack.

_Now_. She taps her foot down, and Skittles charges, a blow point-blank to the face.

She hears Brenden call out Wailmer’s name in alarm as the Pokémon bellows in pain, rolling between the route’s guard rails. (They are disadvantages to using such a large Pokémon in such a confined space).

She hears Brenden curse, recalling Wailmer with an expression seen too many times on her own face, self-recrimination. For putting a Pokémon into an unfavorable position (like miscalculating how much room they have to maneuver).

She did that to Gemma only _once_ , and she thought the guilt of putting her partner in such a state was going to drown her.

She swore it would never happen again; it was a lofty promise, but it was one Riley intended to keep.

His Combusken comes out last, the Pokémon’s crimson feathers shimmering with heat, and power burning like fire in his eyes. She sees Gemma straighten up beside her, his eyes locked on the Pokémon he had once lived with before meeting Riley.

She recalls Skittles with a sharp whistle, and she returns to Riley’s arms with a sharp leap, before crawling up her shoulders, and curling up on her head like a smug hat with a purr.

Gemma takes her place, opening his mouth with a screeching roar, displaying his curved python-like fangs that lined his mouth. Combusken stares back at him stoically, his golden eyes burning like twin embers.

The two Pokémon meet with a monstrous crash, splintering the ground beneath their feet, as Cumbusken sears away the very grass surrounding them. The blows they deal to each other concuss the very air, and Riley’s ears are ringing. She takes to whistling her commands, hoping Gemma can hear her over the sounds of their roaring battle cries.

Cumbusken is wreathed in flames, charging forward at speeds that blur the lines of his body, but Gemma is faster, his speed blistering as he dodges and meets blows in equal measure.

In the end it is Gemma who takes the victory, his body blistered and burned from Combusken’s flames, but victorious. A Leaf Blade that had left the earth beneath it scarred and splintered, had ended the battle.

(And unlike in the game, type match-ups become less a deciding factor for victory as you become stronger, and strategy and leveling are the things that can make or break you).

Brenden looks just as stunned as the first time as he recalled his fallen Cumbusken back into his pokéball.

“Wow,” there was nothing but awe in his voice, “you and your Pokémon sure are something else, huh?”

Riley shrugs with a wry grin, tossing a revive at Brenden, while she patches up Gemma with a couple of super potions she had stocked up. “We’ve been training non-stop for like a week.”

Brenden barks out a laugh, as he uses the revive on Cumbusken, cooing at the bird as he jerks back to consciousness with a squawk. “Oh man. I guess if we ever want a chance of beating you I better start cutting back on all my research time.”

Riley smiles at him with a shrug. “Only if you want to.” But she knows his real passion is in researching not battling. “Are you headed to Slateport?”

“Yeah, I was gonna see about registering for those Pokémon Contests. They look really fun, and Cumbusken has some really flashy moves that I’m sure will do really well,” Brenden tells her, excitement buzzing in every inch of his frame.

Even Cumbusken, who had been sulking at his loss, perks up at that, chirping his own excitement.

Riley forces herself not to flinch, pushing the rising tide of anxiety back down at the mention of the Contest Halls, because this was _not_ about her. Brenden was going to participate, _not_ her.

“That’s great,” her voice comes out a little strangled, but no less sincere. “I’ll have to come watch you some time.” Not this time, her anxiety was still too close to the surface, but in the future, _definitely_.

He thanks her, and leaves her with a dowsing machine before racing off with a wave.

She watches him go, an ember of warmth curling hot and bright in her chest. Yeah, she got pretty lucky having him as a friend.

Mauville is a wretched maze, and Riley _hates_ it. Mauville was not this hard to navigate in the game, but everything is white and shiny, and _identical_. How does anyone live here? She can feel Skittles purring through her hat, and Gemma was snoozing in his pokéball, worn out from the dual grass-type trainer that had harassed her into battling.

Her and Gemma had cut him and his Pokémon down with brutal efficiency. His look of absolute disbelief and devastation was going to be something she treasures for weeks.

She turns another corner, promising herself that she’s going to ask someone for directions this time. She’s silently rehearsing what she’s going to say, and in what order when she hears a vaguely familiar voice cut through her silent rehearsal of asking a simple question.

She looks up, and a shock of pale green hair brings her up short. _Wally_. She hears him going on about battling the gym leader, and there’s a lilt of confidence that hadn’t been there before. He’s standing taller.

Riley cocks her head at him, a small smile pulling at her lips. It seemed that catching a Pokémon had really helped him.

But then he was scurrying off in the direction of the gym, inadvertently leading her to the courtyard which she had been looking for _all day_. Her feet are killing her, and her spine feels like it’s on fire. She huffs a sigh of relief, but watches Wally and his uncle disappear behind the double doors, and wonders.

Healing her Pokémon will take at least a couple of hours. In the game time was irrelevant, and the storyline only continued when she was ready to move on and not before. But this, she was coming to realize _is_ the real world, and she doubts Wally or her uncle would be standing in front of the gym arguing for the three hours it would take for her to join them.

She could push on, Skittles was still in pretty good shape, and she was confident that they could beat Wally’s Ralts, but–

Riley had been waiting for a real chance to test this world, and to see if there even is a set storyline, and now she has her chance. Also, her Pokémon are exhausted, _she_ is exhausted.

It was time to roll the dice and see where they landed, and how it would change things. She walks towards the Pokémon Center, leaving Wally to decide his own fate, and the test of his resolve.

Two and a half hours later Riley is half-asleep on a couch in one of the Center’s common rooms, with Skittles snoozing on her lap, and Gemma curled up half-asleep in a pool of sunlight. Their bellies are full and Riley has no intention of getting up and battling anyone until at least tomorrow, and it seems her Pokémon agree with her.

Her ears prick up when she hears the Center’s doors hiss open and close, and the sound of shuffling footsteps greet her ears.

Wally’s whispering, tear-strained voice has her eyes jolting open. She gathers Skittles in her arms, but shakes her head at Gemma who is looking at her curiously. He settles back down with a small huff, and Riley steps out of the common room and finds Wally with red eyes, and tear-stained cheeks. His Ralts has already been taken back.

Wally’s uncle stands at his shoulder, a frown biting into the lines of his face.

“Wally,” she says his name softly, and he jerks up at the sound of his name.

He stands only a little taller than her, but the broken hunch of his shoulders makes him look half his size.

“Hi Riley,” his voice croaks, still thick with tears.

She doesn’t ask if he’s ok, or what happened–both are obvious to anyone, instead she lets Skittles settle on her head, and takes his hand, leading him to the common room. He follows her silently before falling into the couch like a puppet with cut strings.

His uncle settles himself in an armchair, a crooked silence filling the air between them. Wally looks at Gemma with blank eyes before letting them fall to his hands.

“D-do–do you ever lose?” Wally’s voice is so full of hurt that it makes a fist form in Riley’s chest.

“Yes,” she answers (she’s lost _once_ , so it wasn’t technically a lie). “And it’s always hard.”

Wally’s face crumples. “I–I was so confident, but I–I barely made it into the second room before Ralts fell.”

Riley’s eyebrows rise in surprise. He made it to the second room with a dual fairy-type where most of his opponents would have a devastating type advantage. That was– “That’s remarkable.”

Both Wally’s and his uncle’s heads snap up at that, looking at her in surprise.

She gives them both a searching look. “You challenged a gym known for its electric, and steel-types.”

Wally is still giving her a blank look, like he has no idea what she’s trying to get at. She sighs at him.

“Wally, your Ralts is a fairy and psychic-type, right?”

“Er … yes,” he says it like it's a question, which is _not great_.

She pins him with a _look_ , and she watches as he draws himself up tight, like he’s waiting for a blow. “Fairy-types are weak against steel-types, and neither fairy or psychic attacks are very effective against them. So the fact that you made it past even the first floor with such an obvious type disadvantage is amazing.”

“ _Oh_.” Wally breathes out the exclamation like a benediction, like hope. And his uncle is staring at her with something like relief shining bright in his eyes.

She waits with them until his Ralts is ready to go home. And she hides a smile in Skittles’s coat as she watches Ralts sing happily at the sight of Wally, throwing himself into the boy’s arms.

Wally turns to look at her, relief wetting his eyes, his Ralts sleepily cradled in his arms. “Th-thank you Riley; I–” he looks to the floor, a blush staining his pale cheeks, “We–we’re going to get stronger, and–and one day, maybe we can–um…” his words fall away in his embarrassment, but Riley nods anyway.

“I’ll be waiting for that day,” she promises him, fighting down a grin when his whole face seems to turn a fire engine red.

He squeaks out a _‘thank you’_ before booking it out of the Center, like a pack of Mightyena was snapping at his heels.

“Riley,” she turns her attention towards Wally’s uncle. “Thank you, really. When he walked out of the gym, well … I had never seen him look so defeated. So, thank you–what you said, it meant so much to him.”

Riley shifts, suddenly feeling embarrassed herself, and swallows thickly. “I–I didn’t say anything that wasn’t true.” She digs her fingers into Skittles’s fur, and feels herself breathe a little easier.

“Here,” a bright red disc is suddenly held in front of her. “I was given this years ago. It’s the HM: _Rock Smash,_ I hope you’ll find it useful on your journey.”

“Thank,” but he was already out the door, “you.”

Her and Skittles stare at the red disc with no little amount of wonderment. _Huh_.

Take that storyline.

Wattson, she will admit, was no easy challenge, and she thanks Whoever that she had the foresight to stock up on Paralyze Heals, because _god_ , Static was the literal worst. And Volt Switch is an annoying, blood-boiling move, especially when used effectively (and by god did Wattson know how to use it).

So when Skittles finally landed her finishing blow with Wake-Up Slap (which was not all accurate as to what it looks like; Skittles’s tail basically turns into an iron-red hammer, and hits her opponent with it, in a one-two punch) she sighs in relief.

Wattson, like all the gym leaders she has faced, is a good sport about losing, handing over his gym badge with a laugh. “Now that’s the kind of fight I haven’t had in years!”

He gives her the TM: _Volt Switch_ with a wink before waving her out of his gym, wishing her luck as she walks out his doors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone who says that they never got lost in Mauville City is a fucking liar.
> 
> Also, trying to write a Pokémon battle was both fun and frustrating as shit. I wanted to put some real life aspects into it (as real as I could with Pokémon), and I don't think that type match-ups's would a major deciding factor in victory especially when you reach League level (and it certainly doesn't seem to matter in the anime, not from what I remember anyway). 
> 
> So that was fun.


	4. Part Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And now the storyline is really starting to go off the rails. Kind of. Do I have any idea where I'm going with this? Absolutely not.

**Part IV**

Gemma evolves just outside Fallarbor Town, a beacon of blinding light in the midst of choking, gray ash. The fallen Skarmory that had attacked them for wandering too close to her territory, flinches back as a wave of power pulses through the ground, the light fading with a Sceptile’s echoing roar.

Brenden calls her from Route 111’s desert, looking dirty and frustrated. “Hey, are you already at Fallarbor?” Static from the storm makes the picture fritz, but the audio holds steady.

“Yeah, I’ve already been here two days. Professor Cozmo told me he was waiting for you,” Riley tells him, frowning at the screen. “Are you lost?”

“No,” Brenden huffs, glaring at her through the screen, “more like stuck. A massive sand storm blew in yesterday, and no one’s going anywhere until it clears.” He looks close to sulking, scowling at his rotom-phone.

“Do you know how long?” She doesn’t really remember this part of the game in much detail, but she knows that something has definitely changed. Brenden was supposed to be here by now, not trapped in a sand storm.

Brenden grimaces, his lips pulled tight. “They think at least another day, maybe two.”

Riley sighs, absently scratching Skittles’s silky ears. “Well be safe. And call me if you get any updates.”

He gives her a cheeky salute, even as he squints through the storm. “Will do. Hopefully we’ll see each other by the end of the week.”

She nods, ending the call with a groan. Her newly acquired Swablu trills at her from where he had perched himself on her knee, looking at her curiously. She smiles a little helplessly at him, he’s like a little cotton ball, although he had nearly doubled in size since she had caught him two days ago.

Apparently intensive training does that, going from level 27 to 32 in a matter of forty-eight hours tends to encourage rapid growth. Which is why today is for rest; the nurse on-call had warned her about Pokémon that grew and evolved too quickly, warning Riley about skeletal malformations, and behavioral issues that could crop up if she continued her relentless pace.

So slow, Riley was going to go slow. There was no need for her Swablu to grow up so fast and miss his cute little cotton ball stage. She had named him Cloud, like she had caught a little piece of the sky just for herself.

Gemma and Skittles had reached level 38, and even the surrounding trainers weren’t much of a match for them, but Riley was creative. She didn’t want to solely rely on her partners brute strength for their battles because she knew that one day that their brute strength would fail them, but learning to think up a strategy on the fly could very well save them from a stinging defeat.

So she would take this week and learn. She would train Cloud carefully, and teach him how to communicate silently, with only gestures or whistles guiding his actions rather than words.

Three days ago when she had passed through the boiling guts of Mt. Chimney (where she had stripped down to her sports bra because _fuck_ , it was like walking on the surface of the sun _with_ humidity) she had found Team Aqua had blocked off the public’s access to the cable cars, and when she had tried to get them to move or to engage her in anyway, they had only sneered at her before deliberately turning away.

They had been wearing the orange vests of construction workers over the white and blue of their uniforms. They had paperwork and permits, and everything looked legal, which was just unsettling.

No one had questioned it (but she figures that if she didn’t know Team Aqua as well she did, she wouldn’t have questioned it either).

She did, however, upon arriving in Fallarbor, _had_ finally contacted the police, explaining her previous encounters with the gang, and how she had found them blocking the cable cars on Mt. Chimney. They assured her they would look into it, but a part of her didn’t quite believe them.

Meteor Falls _would’ve_ been beautiful if it wasn’t for the two members of Team Aqua frog-marching a frantic, panicking Professor Cozmo through its gleaming catacombs. Cloud, her freshly evolved Altaria, swoops overhead, his melodious cries echoing like a war song throughout the hollowed, water-soaked chambers.

And Riley is _alone_. The sandstorm on Route 111 had finally abated after eight days of relentless wind, and black-out conditions that had made travel not only impossible, but fatal if attempted. Brenden had only made it to the other side of the desert yesterday, still a hard day’s walk from Fallarbor.

So Riley, for all intents and purposes, is alone (at least where human back-up is concerned). Gemma, now a towering giant that easily clears seven feet, jumps the creaking, wooden bridge, and lands on the other side of Team Aqua, blocking their escape route. The twin feathers on his forearms glow green, as he bares his teeth at them in a snarl.

Riley’s feet burn like nails are being driven into them as she stumbles to a stop on the other side of the bridge; she grits her teeth against the pain that’s sparking like needles through her nerves. Skittles is at her feet, her back arched as she hisses at the woman who turns and glares at them. Ice blue streaks run through her black hair, and there’s a coldness in her eyes that puts a fist through Riley’s chest.

They still have Professor Cozmo sandwiched between them, fear carved into every line on his face.

“Let him go.” Her voice shakes because let’s face it, she’s no hero, and she’s _terrified_. There’s no way a simple Pokémon battle will put an end to this situation. “You don’t have anywhere to run.” Quite literally. Gemma would snap their spines like twigs if they even tried to approach him.

Cloud trilled above them, swopping low, his cotton wings taking on a dangerous silver shine, an unspoken warning if they tried everything. (That _Steel Wing_ really is an impressive move).

“You don’t know what you’re doing brat,” the woman hisses, but makes no move in either direction. The grunt shakes on the other side of her, eyeing Gemma with no small amount of terror.

The woman’s right, she absolutely does not, but Riley can’t walk away from this now. “Just let him go,” she is _this_ close to pleading with the woman.

The woman sneers at her. “No.” She throws a pokéball from her belt with a desperate kind of fury. A Mightyena appears from the red light, shaking itself with a snarl.

Riley presses her lips together in a bitter line; she doesn’t want to fight. That Mightyena doesn’t deserve a chest full of cracked ribs just because it's trainer doesn't know how to walk away from a fight she won’t win.

Regardless, she nods Skittles forward with a heavy heart. The grunt makes no move to join the battle, his grip on the professor tightening as the woman releases her own hold on him to face Riley, a bitter look twisting her lips into an ugly line.

“I hope you have a nice spot picked out for a grave because that’s where you’re both headed,” the woman promises darkly, violence running through her words like venom.

Ice bleeds through Riley’s chest as she stomps her heel into the dirt. Skittles darts forward with a hiss, dodging out of the way of a bite that cracks through the earth. Skittles twists around him, and barrels into the dog’s ribcage with a snarl. Riley can hear the mightyena’s ribs snap as the dog hits the ground with an echoing scream.

It does not get back up.

Skittles heaves in deep breathes, blood staining her forehead as the recoil from her own attack rebounds on her body.

The woman looks at her again, and there is fear crawling into the edges of her expression. Riley stares back at her coldly, the fear beating through her chest has been lost to the burning haze of adrenaline, sharpening her usually frazzled mind to a fighting edge. She’s going to walk out of this alive. Her _Pokémon_ are going to walk out of this alive.

Skittles stands in front of her, bleeding and hurt, and full of fire.

“What … the hell,” the woman looks at her Skitty like she’s never seen one before, before turning on the professor, her hands reaching for his pockets.

“No, wait!” The professor squeaks, as the woman comes away with a shining rock. A meteorite– _oh_. Right, that’s what they had been after (it’s what they had gone after in the game).

Riley looks to Cloud, a whistle forming between her lips when the woman suddenly shoves Professor Cozmo on top of her, forcing them both to hit the ground, pushing her glasses off the bridge of her nose. Her world goes fuzzy around the edges as she hears them dashing across the bridge and out of the cave.

She pushes against the professor, her head still spinning, unable to move the man who seems frozen on top of her.

“Professor,” she grits out, shoving at his chest. “Get off.”

He doesn’t seem to hear her, but his weight is suddenly removed, and Riley inhales sharply, fixing her glasses as she sits up with a groan. Gemma has the professor hanging by a talon, looking distinctly unimpressed by the man who had nearly flattened his human.

Riley chokes on a laugh at the sight; the professor was almost a foot off the ground, curled up like a pup in the maw of its mother, frozen stiff and stuttering.

Cloud lands beside her, nudging her cheek with his beak as Skittles jumps carefully onto her shoulder, sniffing her head delicately.

“Thank you,” she sighs. “I’m alright.”

“It seems we’ve come too late,” a calculated voice muses.

Riley looks up as Gemma drops the professor on his ass, and turns to face the intruders with a shrieking hiss. Cloud steps in front of her, his wings shining a gunmetal silver.

Team Magma.

Maxie eyes her Pokémon cautiously before turning his eyes to her. “I am Maxie,” he introduces himself (needlessly), “the leader of Team Magma–”

“The Aqua pair already left,” Riley interrupts, feeling existentially _done_. Her feet hurt and a headache is beginning to bite at her temples. She is so incredibly _done_. “And if you don’t mind, I’ve had more than my fill of dealing with lunatics in weird costumes. So if you can just be on your way, that’d be great.” Apparently exhaustion and no longer giving a shit does wonders for her awful anxiety that likes to scream at her whenever she so much as opens her mouth. Who knew.

The grunts behind Maxie turn red at her words, but he quiets them with a look, and stares at her for one long, uncomfortable moment. She fights the urge to fidget beneath his unwelcome gaze.

“We’ll be on our way then, but I do warn you to stay out of Team Magma’s way.” He walks away with a flourish, disappearing back into the dark.

Riley rocks back on her hands with a curse. “Fuck.”

Brenden pulls her into a rib-crushing hug when she and the professor (who’s still numb and quiet from the shock) finally stumble their way home well past dark; or really Cloud carries her home because her whole body was basically just a vessel of pain at that point.

“Are you ok?” He squeezes her arms gently, his face pinched and creased with fear, like he’s desperately trying to hold it together.

“I’m fine,” she says quickly, reaching up to grab his elbow. “Really. I wasn’t hurt.” Falling professors slamming her into the ground notwithstanding. “How’d you get here so fast anyway?”

“Um.” Brenden turns bright red before glancing towards the Pokémon Center, where a group of police officers had congregated after asking her and the professor a handful of redundant questions. “I, uh–I got a ride.”

She cocks her head at him, uneasiness rolling through her. She’s pretty sure that she can toss the storyline by the wayside at this point because _everything_ has changed. “From who?”

“From me,” the familiar voice of Steven has her shoulders sagging in relief. Storyline or not, having Steven here feels like relief, like she can finally breathe again. “I thought I told you to stay out of trouble.” Amusement rings through his words, but there’s an edge to his voice that she can’t hear, where worry clings beneath the humor.

She turns to face him, a tired smile pulling at her lips. “And I told _you_ , no promises.”

•

Steven watches her with sharp eyes as she drops onto the nearest couch with a sigh, shutting her eyes against the fluorescent lights of the Pokémon Center. All her Pokémon with the exception of her Sceptile, were all resting inside their pokéballs for once.

He can read the lines of pain etched on her face as she shrugs out of her filthy jacket, and pulls off her boots, lining them up neatly next to her backpack. Exhaustion sits in the slump of her shoulders, but there is also the small thread of fear he sees in the corners of her eyes that makes Steven’s gut pull tight.

She had faced this Team Aqua alone (four times, by her own count), faced down a group of fanatics, outnumbered, with a hostage thrown in the middle of it. Greater people than her had failed in the face of such odds.

But her Pokémon–Steven’s gaze falls on her Sceptile, who watches over her like a sentinel–he has yet to see them in battle, but the way Professor Cozmo had described them, like they were moving parts of the same whole.

And that Riley had never once directed a verbal command towards her Pokémon–Cozmo had sworn by this up and down, even in the faces of the disbelieving officers–she had communicated with them without saying a single word.

Steven had heard of only one other trainer capable of such a feat–the former champion of Kanto, _Red_.

He looks back to her, finding her completely passed out on the couch. Here, she doesn’t look like the formidable trainer that had bested one of the right hands of Team Aqua, or had single-handedly saved Professor Cozmo. No, _here_ , right now, she only looked like an exhausted young woman who had been through a hell of a day.

Her Sceptile had curled himself around the small sofa, his sharp, diamond-like head resting directly beneath her, but his molten eyes snap open when Steven starts towards them.

“There’s beds in the back hallway,” he explains quietly. Pokémon Centers always had rooms set up for the occasional traveler that had either lost their supplies or had come unprepared for the wild. “She’ll only hurt more in the morning if we let her sleep on the couch.”

The Sceptile narrows his eyes at him before getting to his feet with a grumble. His raptor-like talons clicking on the linoleum floor as he hooks his claws through his trainer’s possessions with more gentleness than Steven had expected.

Riley’s easy to pick up (especially for a man who casually carries Arons around like their fashion accessories and not 130 pounds of metal and squirming limbs), and she doesn’t so much as twitch when he pulls her into his arms.

Her short hair is growing out, curling softly around her ears; her face is dirty, a mess of bloodied scraps and dust, and something in his chest wells up with the urge to clean the filth from her face, and doctor the small scrapes littered on her face and limbs. He wants to take care of her, in ways that he can’t quite bring himself to acknowledge.

He barely knows her. He met her once in the darkness of Granite Cave almost two months ago, and … she had left an impression.

He didn’t know whether she knew he was the Champion, but she _did_ know that he’s the heir apparent to his father’s business legacy, and she hadn’t _cared_. She had just treated him like a normal person, had _argued_ with him, and gushed about her Pokémon when he had complimented them.

She was _honest_. And she had a way of looking at him; when she had seen him tonight, she had looked at him like relief. Like hope.

She made him feel like the Champion.

He could only hope to be worthy of it.

He holds Riley securely in his arms as his Skarmory flies them to Mauville City, where a SWAT team was being organized and outfitted for the fight that was sure to break out at Mt. Chimney. The Elite Four would be waiting in the wings; Hoenn’s last line of defense.

Brenden had opted to hitch a hide with the officers, despite the fact that Steven’s Skarmory was plenty big enough to carry three people but, he nor Riley had pushed the matter.

Her Skitty, who she had introduced as Skittles of all things (and Steven couldn’t quite swallow the huff of laughter that had Riley narrowing her eyes at him, despite the smirk growing on her own lips), was cradled securely in her arms.

He feels Riley shiver against him, her thin coat no match for the cutting winds that were only found at this altitude. Frowning, he wraps his arms more securely around her, pulling her towards the warmth of his own body heat. “We’re almost there, just a few minutes longer.”

He feels her nod against his neck, and relax against the warmth of his chest with a sigh; he pointedly doesn’t acknowledge the way his pulse begins to beat like a drum in his ears for the rest of the flight, or the foreign heat suddenly burning his cheeks. It’s just windburn, that’s all.

•

Wattson is waiting for them, a dark expression clouding his face, just on the outskirts of his city, near the grassy borders of Route 111. Flannery, the fourth gym leader is with him, an equally grim look cutting fierce shadows across her face. A contingent of police officers stand at parade rest behind them.

Skarmory lands like a blade cutting through stone, and Riley feels her nerves shiver through her like a growing tide. She squeezes Skittles gently to her chest before prompting her back up onto her usual resting spot.

She doesn’t notice Steven trying and failing not to smile at the sight of her Skitty curled up on the crown of her head like a hat.

She watches Steven jump down with practiced ease, landing on his toes like a cat despite the three foot drop to the ground. Riley grimaces at the height; her feet are going to hurt _so_ _bad_ when she lands–

“Riley,” Steven’s hand is outstretched towards her. “They’re waiting for us.”

A hard stone drops into her gut at his words, but she takes his hand. He lifts her like she weighs nothing, and settles her on the ground gently before turning to address the two gym leaders before them.

“Is everything ready?” He sounds like steel, like a blade cutting through the dark.

“Yes,” Wattson answers, and his voice is hard. Angry.

“SWAT’s already on-site,” Flannery tells them, rolling a collapsed pokéball between her fingers. She looks at Riley, “Are you coming with us?”

Fear punches the breath from her lungs at the thought of facing Archie (this was not a game, this was not a game, _this was not a game_ ), but she forces herself to nod. “Yes,” she says softly, but there is an undercurrent of steel in her voice that everyone hears.

Steven looks at her, his face carefully blank even as his heart shivers in fear _for_ her inside his chest. “Are you sure?”

“I know them,” her voice shakes, but she forces the words out. “I can help give you an advantage.” (God she hopes she can).

“You don’t have to,” Wattson says, his voice is gruff in that soft kind of way, and he looks at her with something like guilt crowding in at the edges at his lips. “You have nothing to prove.”

“It’s not about proving anything,” she tells him, taking comfort in the solid weight of Skittles as she speaks. “I’ve fought them before, and I want to help.”

Flannery hums, looking at her sharply before a grin splits across her face. “I think… I’m going to enjoy losing a battle to you.”

Riley tries to offer her a smile in return, but isn’t sure she manages it. Mt. Chimney continues to belch ash behind them. And a part of her wonders if she’ll even get to have that gym battle.

Riley is stripped down to her tank top, but there is no relief, nothing but heat sucking the air dry around them with every heaving breath. Team Magma had scattered in the face of an armed police force, but Team Aqua had stood their ground, pitting their Poochyenas against the police’s trained legion of Growlithes and Herdiers.

The woman she had fought before stands vigil at the overhang, her Mightyena panting miserably at her side. She pales at the sight of them, eyeing Steven and the gym leaders with true ashen fear, but her lips curl up into a snarl at the sight of her.

“ _You_ ,” she hisses. “Here for a rematch?”

Riley presses her lips together in a grimace when her Mightyena whimpers at the thought of facing them again. His ribs are probably still broken.

“No,” it was Flannery who answers, stepping up to face the woman. “I’m afraid you’ll have to settle for me and the old man.”

Wattson huffs at the old man comment, but steps up beside the fire specialist, nodding for her and Steven to move ahead.

The woman–Shelly–she finally remembers–grits her teeth as they pass, but her attention is forced away as she drags her Mightyena to his feet to face off against a very comfortable looking Slugma.

She wonders grimly if the Mightyena will even survive the fight. Will Shelly even care?

As they make the long walk down the overhang Riley makes the fatal mistake of looking down and feels her gut twist into stone. The floor is see-through. The ground is lava. _Right_ , not a game. This isn’t cool anymore.

The heat seems to double down as she stares into the bubbling river of magma at her feet. She wants to move, wants to run back to solid ground, but her feet might as well be blocks of cement for all the mobility they give her (which is none).

“Riley,” Steven’s hand pulls her face up. “Riley we’re safe. _I_ swear we are safe. The overhang won’t break, we will not fall in. Do you understand?”

She can feel her heartbeat pound like a thundering echo through her skull, and Riley wants to say no. Wants to turn around and _go_ _home_ –go home to her parents, to the world she knows, the one she grew up in.

She wants–

She _wants_ –

Skittles rattles in her pokéball and Riley can almost feel her purring through the capsule. She sucks in a shaking breath. Gemma’s pokéball rattles on her hip next, and Cloud is quick to join him. She exhales, and tightens her trembling fingers into fists. She doesn’t look down.

“Yes,” she whispers, choking down the hot swell of tears that desperately want to fall. “I understand.”

She takes a step forward, terrified and shaking. But she takes the fucking step forward.

Archie grins at the sight of her, even as his cocksure expression falters under Steven’s iron glare.

“All this fuss,” he drawls, “for little old me?” He eyes the line of police standing toe-toe with his disposable henchmen. “You shouldn’t have.”

Riley clenches Cloud’s pokéball tightly between her fingers, watching as Steven steps deliberately in front of her.

“Come quietly. This doesn’t have to end badly for you,” Steven’s voice is cold, like steel sliding along the edge of an exposed throat.

Archie grins at them like a rabid thing. “Oh I wouldn’t worry your pretty little head about that. I have no intention of this going badly for me.”

Riley forces herself not to flinch when his eyes find her, but instead of challenging them to a battle he tosses the sparkling meteorite at her. She manages to catch it more out of surprise than anything else. She looks at him with narrowed eyes–he’s giving it to her after all the trouble they took to get it?

“Think of it as a consolation prize scamp, since I don’t have the time to give ya a proper battle–not with the Champion looming over yer shoulder,” Archie says with a laugh. “Besides, I have much _bigger_ fish to fry.”

Riley freezes, feeling her stomach drop somewhere around her toes. Right. Mt. Pyre–there was something being guarded on the top of Mt. Pyre. Oh shit. _Oh_ _fuck_.

Riley finds all the words she wants to say (wants to _scream_ ) stuck to the roof of her mouth as she watches Archie back dangerously close to the edge. It makes white-hot terror ripple up her spine as Archie’s heels meet air.

She doesn’t like him. A part of her is truly, deeply terrified of him because there is a madness in his eyes, and a fanatic ideal eating away at his brain that doesn’t tolerate reason and finds middle ground akin to treason. But she is not prepared to watch him die, to watch his body hit the river of magma flowing beneath their feet, and _burn_.

She wants to stop this, _all_ of this. But she is frozen, and she can’t bring herself to move.

Steven doesn’t make a move towards him, his jaw tight as he watches Team Aqua’s leader carefully. He catches the blue splash of color of a great ball, and Steven mutters a sharp, “ _shit_ ,” before dashing forward, Skarmory’s pokéball already in hand as Archie falls towards a fiery grave with a grin.

Riley strangles the scream crawling up her throat, because–what the _fuck_ –but a black shadow suddenly darts up through the gray sky, Archie clinging to its back, and swoops away over the volcano, disappearing over the rocky peaks.

“Holy shit.” Riley can feel herself trembling, can feel Cloud’s pokéball rattling insistently between her fingers, wanting out, but she feels stuck.

_What the hell …_ _just_ what _the_ _hell_.

She needs to move. She _really_ needs to move, but her brain is currently nothing but a haze of useless static, and her body isn’t much better. She’s pathetic– _nothing_ happened–there was no battle, she wasn’t the one who had nearly fallen to her death–fuck she _hates_ being this way.

But she can barely make herself breathe, and a part of her wonders if this is what death feels like.

God, she wants Skittles. Gemma. Cloud. She wants her Pokémon.

“Riley.” The cold bite of Steven’t shining rings startle a gasp out of her. “Hey. Hey, it’s alright. We’ll catch him.”

Riley nods, trying to swallow, but her throat burns at the attempt. The adrenaline is leeching from her blood and she can now feel the burning bite in the arches of her feet, and the rush of pain almost comes as a relief.

•

Steven wraps a careful arm around her, guiding her gently off the overhang. He sees her expression tighten as they pass the fallen body of the Mightyena that had once sat loyally at the feet of the woman being taken away in handcuffs.

He can’t find any grief in her eyes, only a sick anger that has turned what would’ve been a pretty face, ugly.

Flannery was gone, but Wattson is waiting for them, a brittle look furrowing his brows. His eyes are also on the fallen Mightyena, the poor thing’s ragged coat was starting to smoulder.

Riley was quiet and he could still feel her trembling beneath his hand. There are shadows cutting her face that he can’t read, and he knows that this is a different kind of silence. There’s an edge to her, an almost fragile slope to her shoulders that he knows if pressed too hard, she will shatter.

Wattson meets his gaze over Riley’s head and gives him a subtle nod. He’ll take care of things here.

Steven leads her towards the Jagged Pass, a sigh of relief passing his lips as the ash finally seems to abate. Riley is still quiet, but her feet keep shifting like she’s in pain–

_Oh_.

“Riley,” his voice is gentle, soft. “Riley, I’m going to pick you up, ok?”

“Skittles,” the name is whispered, barely a sigh between her lips.

Steven blinks. Right, her Skitty. “Do you want me to let her out?”

Riley jerks a nod and Steven frowns as he watches her forcefully take a measured breath before clipping her Altaria back on her belt before fumbling for her Skitty’s pokéball. Her hands are stiff and shaking as she hands it over.

Steven releases her quickly, placing her pokéball in one of his pockets. The Skitty glances at him before turning to her trainer and–oh. _Oh_.

Steven watches them with no small amount of awe as her Skitty jumps into Riley’s arms and presses her full weight against her, purring like an engine. And Riley is shuddering, heaving in gulps of air like she’s finally coming back to herself.

Her team are Service Pokémon. She trained them for service work as well as battling. They’re–she’s–that’s remarkable. But Steven also feels his chest clench at seeing her suffer like this–to _know_ that she will always suffer like this.

He presses his lips together as he watches them. It seems like he has a lot of research in his future (he knows he has books about Service Pokémon somewhere). He wonders if she will tell him what she suffers from, but shakes the thought away before the words can form.

Instead he presses his hand on her shoulder and finds relief filling his chest when she turns to look at him, an embarrassed smile pulling at the dimples in her cheeks. He feels a little helpless as he finds himself smiling back.

“I’m going to carry you, ok?” He expects a fight, of her protesting vehemently against his offer despite them both knowing that the end result will always be the same.

Instead all he finds is exhaustion and pain pinched into the corners of her lips as she cradles her Skitty tighter against her chest. “Please,” she breathes out, and her voice just sounds shattered.

As Steven pulls her into his arms he wonders if she has ever felt quite so small.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love Fallarbor Town. It has Swablu. I love my flying cotton balls.
> 
> And law enforcement are now a thing. I've always wondered, in every Pokémon game, where the hell they were. I mean the world was ending! Where the fuck were they?


	5. Part Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coming down from a panic attack is an exhausting nightmare. Soaking in hot springs make them a little less of a nightmare.
> 
> Also dragons.

**Part V**

Riley lets the tension fall away from her shoulders as she relaxes back into the hotspring. Skittles is resting next to her, primly curled up on a heated rock and content to remain there for the next several hours at least. Gemma sits behind them, ever watchful even at rest, but even he can’t quite resist the lull of the heated rock beneath him. Cloud is preening, floating in the steaming water as he cleans his cotton like feathers back to a pristine, snowy-white shine.

She feels hazy, but in a good boneless sort a way that softens the tense lines of her ribs. Steven had carried her all five miles down the slippery, rocky slopes of the Jagged Pass, and just the thought of it makes her cringe in embarrassment. She doesn’t really remember it, but what she does remember is the solid weight of Skittles balanced carefully on her chest, purring like a motor, and the gentle sway of being carried.

She pointedly doesn’t remember how nice he smelt or the way her body had melted into the warmth of his chest. Nope, she doesn’t remember that part _at all_.

But it was _surreal_.

He had dropped her at the Pokémon Center, and she vaguely remembers him ordering a nurse to look after her (she would’ve protested if she had been in any state to argue), which is how she had found herself in the hot springs out back.

She vaguely remembers the nurse promising her food when she gets out, but right now food is literally the last thing on her mind. She sinks deeper into the water and sighs in pure contentment. She wants to live here, and by _here_ she means in the hot spring.

Gemma is finally the one who pulls her out of the water after an hour, barking the others to their feet. Skittles huffs, arching her back with a yawn before pointedly jumping on Cloud’s back and curling herself back up to finish her nap.

Riley’s lips curl up into a smile, and the last of the fog her brain’s been sitting in finally seems to clear away.

Steven finds her as the sun starts to fall causing the sky to blush pink. She’s using Cloud as a couch when he finds her in the empty common room with Skittles warming her feet. Gemma is curled in a half-circle around them, lazily watching the entrance for any unwelcome visitors.

She feels him coming up beside them before he crouches down next to her, rocking forward on his toes. Shame turns her stomach hard and cold, and she wants nothing more than to curl away and avoid the conversation he clearly wants to have.

She can’t bring herself to look at him even as she mutters a quiet, “I’m sorry.”

She doesn’t see the way his eyebrows fly to his hairline in surprise before pinning her with a searching look. “You don’t have to apologize for anything. Archie outmaneuvered us, but he can’t run forever.”

“No,” her voice garbles the word, “not that.” (Although she was–she was _so_ deeply sorry for that). “I’m sorry about–” She looks down towards her feet and feels her stomach clench in embarrassment. “I usually have a better handle on … _that_.”

His gaze is a pressure point on her skin, like someone pushing gently down on her, and Riley can’t decide whether she likes the feeling or not.

“Like I said, you don’t have to apologize, not for _anything_.” His voice is gentle and it lands bright and hot between her ribs.

“Still …” a part of her still wants to argue because in the end, the only thing she ended up being was a burden. She opts for making light of it instead. “It seems like everytime we meet you always end up carrying me. I still don’t know how you managed to get down the Jagged Path with me weighing you down.”

Steven grunts, amusement lining his eyes. “I’ve carried Arons that weigh more than you; trust me, you weren’t weighing me down.”

“Ha,” she enunciates sarcastically, a fragile smile pulling at her lips.

And as he smiles back at her she feels that last bit of tension sitting in her chest disappear, between one breath and the next.

He leaves her on the doorstep of Flannery’s gym, leaving to continue his hunt for Archie and the rest of his organization. She wants to tell him about Mt. Pyre, but every time she tries her tongue dries up, and the words won’t come. Because if he asks her how she knows, she won’t be able to answer (and telling him the actual truth is just _unthinkable_. He’d never believe her)–so she lets him go.

He gives her his number, making her promise to call him if she finds herself in the crosshairs of Team Aqua again.

“I promise,” she says. She looks up at him with narrowed eyes. “Be careful. Don’t do anything stupid.”

He grins at her, mounting his Skarmory with ease. “You should heed your own words Riley. Good luck, I’ll see you soon.”

She watches him until he disappears into the open sky before turning towards the Lavaridge Gym, and pushes its doors open.

The fire-type gym is _fun_ , and by fun she means nerve-wracking. Having a wooden platform that drops out from under you, and sends you plummeting six feet down into five feet of water was not what Riley considers a good time.

Her Pokémon, however, were having a blast. The hot water added in an element of battle that Riley wasn’t used to considering, and Gemma had nearly gotten himself toasted twice because of it. So, learning experience.

Still, trying to stomach the gut-punching drops was harder to manage than the battles she and her team faced. They were vastly over-leveled, and well-trained. None of the trainers had stood a chance.

And Flannery, so different from how Riley remembered her in the game, greets her with a grin.

“I’ve been waiting for you, and Wattson promised me a battle that would leave even my blood singing.” She throws out a pokéball, her Slugma crying out, echoing his trainer’s excitement as it hits the floor.

Riley smiles, the now familiar thrum of anticipation rising up within her, like a bonfire being fed fuel. “High praise,” she says, tossing out Cloud’s pokéball. He appears with an echoing battle song as he turns to look at her, awaiting her command.

She whistles long and sharp, and Cloud unfurls his wings, taking to the air. Flannery flashes her teeth in a rabid mockery of smile, commanding her Slugma into action with a laugh.

She finds Brenden loitering outside the doors of the town’s apothecary, sorting out the herbs he bought into his pack. She brushes her newly acquired Heat Badge with her thumb as she steps towards him. She hadn’t seen him since they had separated in Fallarbor, and she hadn’t even caught a glimpse of him during the fight on Mt. Chimney.

The awful part of her brain hisses at her that she must’ve done something wrong. She stomps on the intrusive thought even as her gut curls at the thought. Skittles, still happily perched on her head, starts purring.

She moves to speak, but Brenden spots her first, fumbling to his feet with a weird, flustered expression on his face that she can’t make heads or tails of.

“Riley!” He pulls her into a hug that she happily returns. “Are you ok? I didn’t even see you at Mt. Chimney,” he pauses, frowning. “ _Were_ you at Mt. Chimney?”

Her mind flashes briefly back to Archie falling towards a river of magma with the smug look of victory on his face, and the smouldering body of Shelly’s Mightyena, and manages to nod weakly. Skittles presses her paws down sharply on her head, her purring vibrating through her small body. Riley reaches up to stroke her side in thanks.

“I was there,” she tells him flatly. “I watched Archie fly off.”

“Yeah,” Brenden looks down, a frown darkening his face. “But they’ll get him. Also,” he looks away with a blush, his hand reaching to adjust his hat. “I was wondering if you wanted to travel back to Petalburg with me? Your dad’s gym is the one after this one, right?”

Alarm bells blare her head. Your father, your father, _your father._ Right, her father, from this world– _fuck_. She looks back to Brenden’s hopeful face, and finds herself saying yes before she can think better of it.

She has immediate Regret.

They make it to Mauville City by the time the first stars start to appear in the sky (she’s been riding Cloud for the last hour and a half. It’s like riding a marshmallow, she may never walk again).

“We’ll stay here tonight, and then head back through the cave in Verdanturf. Sound good?” Brenden looks up, biting into his tauros burger like he was starving.

She nods, biting into her own trying to swallow down the absolute shit storm of anxiety taking over her brain like a level five hurricane. (She has memories of her _parents_ , of her childhood in Johto. Pure instinct has gotten her through her interactions with them so far, and they act so much like _her_ parents that its … its–she can’t even find the words to describe the level of fucked up she feels about this).

She’s not ready to face him. Her … _father_. Not emotionally. Especially when the lines between her memories of her world and this world keep blurring together at the edges.

Hours later, happily settled into a food coma, she’s jerked out of her doze that had been slowly but surely easing her to sleep, to the sound of Brenden’s rotom-phone.

He stares at it a little bleary-eyed before shaking himself. “Huh … it’s my dad.” He answers it, and even Riley can hear Professor Birch’s voice shout excitedly over the phone.

She can see Brenden flinch at the barrage of noise, the haze of sleep still heavy in his eyes before he’s finally registering whatever his dad is yelling over the phone.

“Oh wow, that’s–” she sees the exhaustion lift from his shoulders, excitement taking its place. “Really? Yeah, yeah I’ll be there in an hour!”

He turns to her with a grin before his face falls with guilt. “Oh, Riley I’m–”

“It’s fine,” she says quickly, feeling more relieved than anything. “Petalburg’s only a day’s walk from here. Go on, I know how much you love your research.”

“You sure you don’t mind?” He’s looking at her like a kicked puppy.

She huffs at him. “Only if you don’t tell me every detail about it when we see each other again.”

He grins at her, pulling on his shoes and grabbing his backpack as he heads towards the doors. “It’s a deal! Stay safe, Riley.”

She lifts a hand to wave him out the door. “See ya.”

She sinks back into Cloud’s feathers with a relieved sigh, absently scratching Gemma between the ridges of his crown until a rumbling purr vibrates from his chest. _Thank god,_ she thinks, because she was so not ready to confront all of that.

She gives herself ten days. Ten days to train, ten days to come as close to acceptance as she can possibly get.

She gets texts from her _mother_ almost everyday, and they remind her so much of her other mother (of her _mom_ ) that it nearly cracks her heart in half all over again. She always responds, like instinct, like how she used to respond with her own mom, full of sarcasm and inside jokes that only they’ll ever understand.

It's easy (it's so, _so_ easy), and the guilt burns. Like she’s forgetting the mother she used to have. (But, are they really different? Or just different versions of the same woman who loved and raised her?)

Her _father_ is a little easier, but even that isn’t saying much. His life as a gym leader makes him busy, but not unreachable. And he calls rather than texts, and her heart nearly beat out of her chest the first few times she answered, terrified that he would realize that something was wrong, that she wasn’t who he thought she was.

But the accusations never came.

He seemed used to her stilted conversations over the phone, and has a talent for never making them seem awkward. A lot like her dad used to do back in her world, when she had confided in him that phone calls were hard for her. That she always needed a script to help her get through any official phone call, and that it was panic inducing to talk to someone when she _couldn_ ’t have some kind of script to help her.

After that her dad had a point of _always_ calling, and helping her patiently through a phone call. Her father of this world, he did the same thing.

A part of her wonders, had always wondered if, maybe–her parents are here with her, in all the ways that really matter.

When she finally reaches Petalburg, her and her team are sharpened to a fighting edge. At level 45 they bristle with power, and the grace and experience to use it. Riley breathes, sitting cross legged on the back of Cloud, and feels her heart beat with her, calm and steady. Secure.

She stares at her father’s–at her dad’s gym, and smiles. She’s ready.

Skittles stares up at her with a face that is both familiar and utterly foreign; her Skittles, with the refined, sharp features of a Delcatty.

 _Play_ _Rough_ is the last, natural move Skittles will ever learn, and when Riley had offered her the Moon Stone she had found at Meteor Falls, Skittles had pressed her paws to it without hesitation. Mewing softly in gratitude as a great swell of light enveloped her, and her form began to change.

She went through the last doorway with a Delcatty at her side, her footsteps no more than a whisper on the slick wooden floors of her father’s dojo. (And Skittles, who once had barely reached her shins, now stood nearly as tall as her ribs. Nearing three feet tall, Skittles was more than a force to be reckoned with; she was something to fear to all those who sought to challenge her).

She finds her father sitting with his back to her, his spine rigid and shoulders taut. “I knew you would find your way here eventually,” Pride was clear in his voice, but there was something else, like the sound of old growth giving way to the new. It sounded like sorrow, but there was no pain in it.

He gets to his feet, and faces her with a challenge that hardens the lines of his face. He tosses out his first pokéball, revealing a sharp taloned Linoone. He smiles at her, full of sharpness and the warmth of parental pride. “Riley. Show me what you and your Pokémon have learned.”

Riley lets out a breath, and nods Skittles forward. She looks into the face of her father, and finds her dad staring back. There is no guilt this time as her chest fills with warmth, with affection for the parents she had never lost at all.

She whistles sharp and high, and watches Skittles dart forward in a blur, her new purple tail glowing fire-red. She is home. _(She is home)_.

Wally leaves her at the border of Route 118, grinning at her with a confidence that makes him stand tall, his eyes brimming with strength. They promise each other a battle the next time they meet, and Riley can’t wait. Gemma, who stands behind her, straightens in anticipation (he recognizes power when he sees it).

(A word about HM’s, and the four move limit: most Pokémon have superb memory, and can understand, if not the meaning of the human language, than its _intent_. Like dogs, and most other animals who can memorize at least a dozen commands, and can be taught to have the vocabulary of a toddler–a Pokémon can be trained well beyond that. But like any command, the ones you use the most are the ones they know well. In other words, Pokémon Moves are essentially: _use it or lose it)_.

Cloud isn’t _technically_ Surfing. Altarias can’t learn it (none of her Pokémon can), so she’s _hovering_ instead, only a few feet off the water. The air space above Hoenn is strictly regulated, as their region sees some of the largest migrations from Kanto and Johto. It’s why getting the Feather Badge is the usual ambition of most casual trainers.

The badge grants them permission to Fly in Hoenn’s airspace without the threat of receiving a hefty fine, and a three month suspension of your trainer’s license.

Riley, however, isn’t worried. Hoenn’s restricted airspace is 3,000 feet above her head, and there’s technically no rule that forbids her from riding her Altaria across the channel. (And she would know; she’s read that thing backwards and forwards at least a dozen times now).

•

Steven frowns, eyeing Route 118, but nothing stands out. He had heard rumors of Team Aqua skulking about near the tall grasses, but there’s _nothing_. His Skarmory had been hunting them from the sky, but even her keen eyesight had failed to see those white and blue eyesores.

With a sigh he turns his sights on the sea, and then blinks. An Altaria was making its way across the channel, but it wasn’t using _Surf_ (which would make sense, seeing as the Pokémon can’t actually learn it). Instead it was flying low, well below the restricted air space, reserved for those with the Feather Badge, and the wild flocks of bird Pokémon that call this region home.

When he sees the now familiar battered army jacket, and the short hair beginning to curl at the ends, he chokes on a laugh. Riley, _of course_. Only Riley would think to use a loophole that didn’t technically break any League rules to get across the sea without using _Surf_.

 _Arceus_ , this woman.

He jumps down from the small ledge to greet her as she makes her up the sandy shoreline. He knows he’s been spotted when she freezes for a brief second before a small smile pulls at the dimples in her cheeks. If Steven was the poetic sort he would liken her smile to drops of sunshine on a darkened floor (but he’s not, so he doesn’t. He _doesn’t_ ).

“Riley,” he quirks his head at her with a smirk. “I see you’ve managed to cross the sea without a water Pokémon.”

A bark of laughter falls from her lips and it fills Steven’s chest with warmth. “Caught.” She grins at him, completely unapologetic.

“Is there a reason you haven’t caught one yet?” He gives a pointed look towards the sea behind them.

Riley shrugs, running her hands absently through Cloud’s downy feathers. “If I’m going to catch a Pokémon it’s going to be because I want them to become a part of my team. Catching them just to teach them a convenient Move, and then throwing them in a Box when you're done with them just seems _wrong_.”

There’s a passion in her voice that surprises Steven (but in hindsight it really shouldn’t), like she’s given this a lot of thought. He knows certain trainers who fashion themselves as collectors, who have Boxes full of Pokémon that never see the outside of a PC.

He’s never felt the urge himself, finding himself more inclined to hunt and collect rare stones rather than Pokémon (and he has his team, his partners who have traveled the world with him, who have helped him take and _keep_ the title of Champion. He could never fathom replacing any of them).

But he’s never given much thought about the trainers who do collect Pokémon, only to throw them into Boxes just to say they have them; and to his shame he’s never given much thought to the Pokémon stuck in those PC’s. Perhaps he should.

He looks consideringly at Riley watching her lips dip into a frown as she eyes the ocean channel, her hands still stroking the wings of her Altaria.

“You have a kind heart,” he says gently. _A soft heart._

She blinks at him, confusion wrinkling her face as she cocks her head at him. “Thanks … I think?”

He considers telling her about the sightings of Team Aqua around the coming route, but decides against it. He knows that if he tells her, she’ll deliberately go looking for them (she can tell him all she wants about how ‘not brave’ she is all day long, but he knows better. Her voice may shake, and she may freeze at the beginning, but she _fights_. She’s been given every chance to turn in the other direction and run away, but she never has. And he knows, much to his consternation, that she never will).

He’s about to turn away, a ‘good-bye’ already forming on his lips when a piece of the sky _moves_. Riley’s Altaria turns with a cry, and to Steven’s surprise sees the Pokémon’s white wings shine with a familiar silver as the Altaria steps in front of his trainer with a terrifying threat display that even has Steven taking a few cautious steps back.

A low rumble vibrates through the air that Steven feels more than hears. The piece of sky shimmers before dropping away to reveal the stark blue feathers of Latios (his feathers shine like the iridescent colors found only in the hewed gems of the lapis lazuli), one of the eon Pokémon that watch over their region. Awe fills Steven’s chest like sunlight spilling into all of his darkened corners filling him with light.

Latios looks at him with eyes the color of jasper–bright red and beautiful. Riley is looking at the mythical Pokémon with wonder on her face, but not surprise.

Latios’s voice rumbles through the air again, and he can feel the sound vibrate deep between his ribs. Altaria’s song-sweet voice answers, his wings softening back to the pristine white of soft clouds.

Steven takes a step forward and feels his heart lodge itself in his throat when Latios turns to look at him, the Pokémon’s gaze piercing straight through him. But there is a desperation in those eyes, a rigidness in the sharp angles of his azure wings.

“Do you want to take us somewhere?”

Latios’s answering rumble rattles through his skull like an echoing vibration. He hears the quiet whoosh of Riley’s Altaria being returned to his pokéball. He feels her hand grab his arm, and despite the fact that her hand can barely fit around the width of his bicep, he can feel the strength of her fingers as they tightened their hold around him.

“I’ll come to,” she says, her voice quiet as she turns to address Latios. “If that’s alright with you.”

Latios replies by lowering himself towards the ground and allowing them both to climb onto his back.

•

Riley’s starting to believe that being unhinged is a strict requirement for the members of Team Aqua, as Archie’s left hand in his organization ( _Matt_ , he had introduced himself with a Sharpedo’s grin), does nothing but laugh as they stand in his way. Latias and her Mega Stone are sheltered behind them, watching everything play out with keen, amber eyes.

Steven’s eyes are cold, like chips of ice as Matt and the poor trembling grunt release their Pokémon with a flourish. “You should’ve left when I had given you the chance,” Steven says. There is no mercy in his voice, no option for a peaceful surrender.

Matt’s Sharkpedo circles in the shallow waters just to the left of Riley, turning the water murky with every cut of its ragged fins. The grunt’s Grimer sits in-between them, looking vastly outclassed, but determined. Riley has a sick feeling that it won’t survive this fight (or if it does, it won’t be for long).

She releases Gemma, who shakes himself with a sharp snap of his jaws, his sharp eyes already locked onto the frothing murky waters, but it is Steven’s Pokémon that has Team Aqua stumbling back, their faces ashen with fear.

Metagross. Its size alone would make any reasonable trainer turn tail and run; but it is more than just that, more than the awesome power that shimmers like gossamer strings in the air that surrounds it–there’s just _more_.

(In the game, Steven never displayed his true power, only bits and pieces of it, like a flash of pointed teeth in the dark). But here, in this world, he doesn’t hesitate, showcasing the power of his Metagross, and proving to Team Aqua that they had made the Very Bad decision of crossing him.

Even Gemma lowers his head in deference to the titan standing beside him.

The battle is over in two swift moves; Riley whistles sharply and Gemma is on the water, the feathers on his arms glowing bright, slicing through the cutting hide of the Sharpedo, and beaching it with a hard slam of his tail.

Matt recalls his Pokémon with a curse. The grunt’s Grimer suffers a similar fate, unmoving after Metagross’s _Psychic_ drops it in a single move.

“Heh. So Archie wasn’t lying.” A salacious grin is aimed at Steven. “Well, I do love myself a strong man, it’s why I’ve been followin’ Archie for so long. The next time we meet, I’ll beat ya’ black and blue, just to show you how much I admire ya’.”

Riley watches them walk away, feeling very much like the embodiment of a dozen question marks. Did that–did he really just say that?

She glances at Steven, but it's like he’s carved from stone. She can’t read him at all (well except the anger, his whole face is tight with a cold, terrifying kind of fury), but she wonders if Matt’s sick words made ice sink into his stomach like it did hers.

She doesn’t hear them leave, doesn’t hear the sputtered roar of a boat as it flees the isolated island, but she does feel the tension ease, like the whole island takes a breath, and sighs in relief.

Riley sighs with the island, scratching Gemma beneath his chin as he curls around her with a guttural purr. Steven has his hand on one of Metagross's forelegs, a smile smoothing away the tense, angry lines on his face as his fingers stroke the Pokémon’s smoothe, shining surface.

“Are you alright?” The words are out of her mouth before she can think better of them.

Steven looks startled at her question, although she can’t fathom why. She’d be a shaking mess if Matt had directed all that leering awfulness on her.

“Metagross and I are fine Riley,” he says, amusement peering through his words. “The Grimer didn’t touch us.”

She gives him an unimpressed look. “No, I mean–that Matt guy said some awful, _ugly_ things and–”

“Riley,” he says her name in a way no one else ever has, like he’s condensing an entire novel's worth of words into her name. Today, her name sounds like gratitude. “I’m fine. Truly.”

She tilts her head at him, her lips pressed into a thin line of disbelief. She slides her fingers down Gemma’s shimmering scales to keep herself grounded.

“Believe it or not,” he says wryly, “that is not the worst thing that’s ever been said to me.”

Riley fingers stop dead on their slide down Gemma’s scales, and somewhere in her brain a record is scratching to a stop. “I–” Horror collects like dust in the back of her throat. “Do I … want to know?”

A part of her very much, does not want to know because _what’s worse_? Another part of her emphatically wants to know, just so she can feed all those words and depraved ideas into the furnace that fuels her rage.

A bitter look crosses his face. “No. No you do not,” he bites the words out like they hurt, before he recalls his Metagross, shooting it one last grateful smile before it disappears in a flood of red light.

She does the same to Gemma despite his grumblings, but he’s not the best swimmer, and they're miles from the mainland.

“I’m sorry,” she says, feeling helpless and a little angry at herself as the trite, overused words fall from her lips. “If–if you ever change your mind, I’d be happy to set Gemma on them.” She stares at her shoes, as her brain makes the awful, executive decision to try and make light of this. “Make them _really_ regret their life choices.”

Steven’s laughs in a strangled kind of way, almost like his body has forgotten how, and the awful tension bearing down on her chest eases at the sound.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he tells her. He wasn’t smiling, but the lines of tension on his face had eased.

They both turn to leave, but a low croon that Riley can feel in her bones has her stopping in her tracks. She turns, and nearly stumbles back with a yelp when she finds a pair of golden eyes staring down at her.

“Um, hi?” Right. _Right_. Latias joins her team in the game (she hadn't wanted to get her hopes up, but staring into Latias’s open, curious face she can’t help but feel a surge of hope bubbling up inside her chest).

“It looks like she wants to join you,” Steven says. She looks over her shoulder to find a smile on his face, full of wonder as he looks at Latias. “She’s beautiful. Her red feathers remind me of a Sun Stone. She’s just as beautiful as any steel-type.”

She almost calls him out for being such a dork, but he has such a look of childish awe on his face that she just can’t bring herself to tease him. Instead she just nods, carefully holding out a hand for Latias to inspect.

When Latias presses her head into her hand, Riley expects the soft touch of silky, down feathers, what she does not expect is the strange rush of power that ploughs through her skull and almost brings her to her knees.

Correction: _does_ bring her to her knees.

She can feel Steven’s hands around her, holding her up, but his voice sounds far away, like she’s underwater. But Latias she can feel, like a tether binding the two together like bands of silken steel.

_Holy shit._

A wave of apologetic amusement crests through the silken strands of their bond, washing over her.

 _Oh_. She blinks her eyes open, feeling the wet grass staining the knees of her cargo pants. She feels the line of heat of Steven’s body pressing against her, his voice a soft repetition of her name.

“I’m ok,” she rasps, and wow she sounds like she’s been screaming (for Steven’s sake she hopes not).

“No, no you are _not_.” There’s a hard edge of terror in his voice that has Riley turning to look at him. “You _collapsed_ Riley.”

“Is Latias ok?” She turns to look at the mythical Pokémon that had chosen her, and unconsciously pulls on the strings tying them together. A flood of reassurance warms her, like being doused in a hot spring. And wow, ok then, that’s _awesome_.

“Is La–” He stares at her incredulously for a beat before continuing, sounding more rattled than she has ever heard him, “ _Yes_ , Latias is fine.”

“Ok, ok.” She gently pulls away from him, feeling all kinds of tender as he helps her to her feet.

“What happened?” He looks at her worriedly, shooting cautious looks at Latias that seems content to hover nearby.

“I, um …” she’s not really sure how to explain it, and tugs at the bond absentmindedly, trying to find the words. Latias tugs back playfully. “Um … when I touched Latias, I think she created a psychic bond between us, and … _yeah_.”

She grins up at him sheepishly.

Steven deflates with a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation. “Of course,” she hears him mutter. “Somehow I am not surprised. But you _are_ ok, right?” He pins her with a piercing look, and she can feel even Latias wilt a little beneath it.

“I’m fine Steven, I _promise_ ,” she says, trying to sound confident (which she isn’t). “It was just … a lot to take in all at once.”

He doesn’t look convinced, but refrains from arguing. “Alright then,” he sighs, wrapping a careful arm around her shoulders, “let’s get back to the mainland.”

Latias carries her this time around, with Latios and Steven following close behind. Riley experimentally prods the bond binding them together. _Can you understand me?_

Words don’t answer her back, but the feeling of warm, airy cotton wrapping itself around her, gives her a sense that, _yes_ , Latias can definitely understand her.

 _Do you mind if I give you a name?_ She had given names to the rest of her partners; it was only right to ask.

A vibrating echo thrums through her, like a high note on a guitar being struck. _I’m going to take that as a yes_. The humming vibration echoes again.

Steven said Latias’s red feathers reminded him of a Sun Stone, but Riley’s first impression had been roses, rich and sharp. Riley smiles, the wind carrying away her muffled snickering as she thinks of the first name that seems to stick. _Rosie_.

A warm bolt of heat races down their bond, a coal of warmth hitting her stomach. Latias– _Rosie_ hums in agreement, giddy happiness tingling like firecrackers through the bond. Riley feels a grin spread across her face, digging her fingers in Rosie’s ruby red feathers.

(A note about the eon Pokémon: nothing is set to scale in the game. _Nothing_. Latios is at least fifteen feet long, and their wings aren’t rigid and inflexible like they are in the game; they are powerful and sharp-looking, and can be folded against their sides, just like the wings of other bird Pokémon.

(Latias, although smaller than her counterpart, is still large enough to dwarf Cloud’s lofty size of six and a half feet).

•

Steven wants to lay down and take a nap for the next _year_. The Elite Four are never going to believe this.

He slips off the back of Latios, and turns to find Riley doing the same. She doesn’t look any worse for wear, but his face tightens as he recalls her flinching back from Latias’s touch with a strangled yelp before falling to her knees.

He has never felt fear like that, never had his heart jump into his throat, or beat a terrified tattoo in his ears as he pulled her in his arms with shaking hands. Latias had also dropped, crumpling onto the forest floor with a cry that had brought Latios racing towards them.

It was not an experience Steven ever hoped to repeat. Once was enough; once was _more_ than enough.

He watches Riley stroke Latias’s head with a smile, before turning towards him. He wants to ask her if she’s alright for the tenth time, wants to drag her to the hospital in Mauville City to reassure _himself_ that she’s fine. That they will be no ill effects of this psychic bond Latias had forced on her.

Riley seems to read his concern on his face because she sighs at him. She taps his hand with her finger, a knowing smile on her face. “I’m fine. I think me and Rosie are settling into this bond thing. It’ll just take a bit to get used to.”

He scrubs a hand down his face, an incredulous laugh breaking from his lips. “Rosie?”

“Well yeah.” She tilts her head at him, and he can almost see a pout at the edges of her frown. “She needed a name Steven.”

He smiles helplessly at her. This woman–this woman who asks after the Pokémon who had just sent her to her knees, and names them because “everybody should have names Steven. Calling my Skitty, ‘Skitty’, would be like having a kid, and naming them ‘Person. It’s weird Steven’.”

The kind of person who had asked after him with such concern in her eyes, and anger in the hard set of her shoulders after that Team Aqua admin had all but threatened to rape him. She had looked horrified, on behalf of _him_.

No one had ever–he was the Champion, the most powerful trainer in the region. Everyone expected him to protect himself (and he did), but she had looked at him with concern, and had offered herself up for a fight that wasn’t hers.

She was just … _remarkable_.

Before she can open her mouth and lecture him about names ( _again_ ), he interrupts her, pulling a small chain from his pocket. He’d been meaning to give this to her after she had defeated Wallace, but he knows she should be able to make use of it now.

“Here,” he says, taking her hand in his, and clipping the wire steel bracelet around her wrist. “This is a Keystone. It’ll react to the Mega Stone that Latias is holding, and will grant her the ability of Mega Evolution.”

Her fingers curl around the Keystone, and she looks up at him, her eyes bright under the afternoon sun. “Thank you.”

He wants to pull her into a hug, to feel her body, warm and solid against his own, but he refrains. Instead he rests a hand on her shoulder and gives it a gentle squeeze. “Be careful, alright? I’ll see you soon.”

He says it like a promise, one he fully intends to keep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... I have no idea how sexual attraction works. And since this is basically my borderline self-insert fic, Riley is definitely on the gray spectrum. And since I'm still wondering on which side of the line I fall between asexuality and demisexuality (if there even is a line) assume that Riley is somewhere in-between as well. 
> 
> I will take suggestions because romance is so out of my wheel house. 
> 
> Also, I just realized that AO3 does not copy over all the blodings or italics, so that'll fun way to spend the next hour. Editing through my last four chapters. 
> 
> Damn it.


End file.
